Have you ever awakened at 3:00 a.m., rehashing a conversation from earlier in the day? Why didn’t I think to say X? Or if I had just commented that Bryan’s actions were “unusual” instead of calling them “irrational,” maybe he wouldn’t have exploded and walked out. What if . . . . On and on, [...]

2018-11-13T03:51:37+00:00By Dianna Booher|Comments Off on The Best Kept Secret in Handling Emotional Conversations Well

(This blog first appeared on Forbes.com here.) Life unfolds as a series of persuasive interactions—to get a date, a mate, a job, a promotion, a sale. What can you do to influence how others think or act as a result of your encounters? Here are 3 counter-intuitive principles of persuasion that most people find hard [...]

An executive coaching client shared this goal with me: “I want to become a more inspiring speaker so my employees really become engaged and catch the vision for this upcoming year.” The backstory: According to the CEO, this senior leader Tyler, who’d assumed the role of plant manager three years earlier, did not get along [...]

2018-09-02T01:57:58+00:00By Dianna Booher|Comments Off on 4 Misconceptions About How to Be an Engaging Speaker

No matter the topic, there’s always the flipside. Politics? The liberal view versus the conservative view. Religion? Scores of interpretations. How to build the better app? Fee versus free, with imbedded links. So when it comes to communication, the same is true. What you’ve always heard as conventional wisdom may not be “best practice” after [...]

As people celebrate their mothers this week, most expressions of love and gratitude will be about family, sacrifice, and serving. Yet leaders also owe a great deal of respect to their moms for their model of how communication works in the marketplace. For parallels, consider these lessons learned at your mom’s knee: Good Moms and [...]

2018-02-28T21:15:41+00:00By Dianna Booher|Comments Off on What Great Leaders Learn About Communication From Moms

It’s not human nature to welcome negative feedback. At best, people accept the comments, make changes for the better, but feel disappointed that they didn’t perform better the first time around. At worst, they disregard the feedback, become disengaged, and dislike the person who took the time to comment. So it’s no wonder that leaders [...]